Public Lecture Series 2008:
Muslim Youth in Contemporary Australia: Identity, Schooling and Belonging
Speaker: A/Professor Fethi MansouriDate: 29 May 2008
Transcript
This transcript was typed from a recording of the lecture. The NCEIS cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.
I think it’s very important to understand that we are, right now at the crossroads in terms of our society response and standing of the nature of what I call intercultural relations. It’s not simply about migrants. There’s perhaps a false assumption that migrants as a concept has come to be synonymous with certain minorities, certain migratory groups and in this debate that we are having right now, it has been associated with Muslims and Arabs and Middle Easterners, almost in a very exchangeable way. A lazy intellectual exercise, I should say.
We are seeing it again in New South Wales. There is a very hotly contested debate about whether a local government should allow the establishment of an Islamic centre/school in an area which is not seen to be, perhaps, naturally conducive to having that kind of urban planning in that area. What’s interesting, not so much that that licence was rejected, is the discourse it has generated, and also it has revealed that we do still have, unfortunately, some serious matters that have not been resolved at the National level.
Those matters relate to our National identity. It relates to our ability as a society to engage with various sections of our larger community. It also shows us that we are facing some challenges in reframing our social policies in the area of multicultural relations and the area of integration of migrants and the area of ensuring that there is a quality social justice and active citizenship for all.
When we say active citizenship, we can look at it in two different ways; it’s obviously the economic but also the political and the civic engagement. That’s, I think, where we are facing some difficulties.
This specific project I will be talking to you about is actually dealing with those issues in the domain of youth – youth who are both Arab and Muslim youth. It’s always very to find a nice useful tag to describe your cohort of participants but in this case it is very difficult. So I use both Arab and Muslim youth, if you like, because some elements of one are present – or perhaps are mutually exclusive. In the case of the Assyrians there is a debate where they don’t consider themselves Arab but then neither are they Muslims, but yet, we see them in the same group of students as, say, Lebanese Muslims or Iraqi Christians. So, we have a lot of complexity that we need to unpack sometimes when dealing with this kind of empirical research.
The big picture that I’ve put there for you here is that there is always a bit of a dilemma, there’s almost a paradox in Australian social policy making. The paradox is basically this; at one level we have come up with a lot of elegant social policies which, in theory, should allow us to be able to manage and integrate a large number of people of different backgrounds into our society without any problem.
In the context of this specific case study, when you do a proper policy analysis of how we thought our education system can cope with diversity in the classroom, you’ll find that both the Commonwealth Government – through a number of initiatives and policies – have instituted what I would call, perhaps, not a logistical framework but at least a policy framework which, if applied fully, would enable schools to be able to deal with cultural diversity; both as a pedagogical issue but also as a inter-communal relation issue.
Therefore, there is a plethora of policies and initiatives; there is a plethora of statements and discussion papers that have come up at the federal level. I would like to highlight and emphasise the last one there which is the National Framework for Values in Education Australia. That was a very interesting project because it shifted the debate a little bit from focusing on broad concepts of, say, a link to standards and frameworks to a kind of consensus discussion on what are the Australian values and the extent to which we can ensure that diversity in the schools still meet minimum standards of achieving and realising those values.
That National policy approach has also been complemented by a State based approach. I think the State based approach was very interesting in a sense that we have seen a very strong policy paper that was introduced in 1997. I am pleased to report to you that recently the Department of Education has called for expressions of interest to review and rewrite that 1997 paper, 11 years after it was established and introduced. Now, they are setting up groups and doing work towards revising and rewriting the multicultural policy for Victorian schools, which I think is a welcome development.
The interesting thing here, at the State level, is that there have been again a lot of policy articulations, a lot of policy formulations, which led to the Victorian Curriculum Reform Project in 2003. That reform project resulted almost directly in what is known now as VELS, which is Victorian Essential Learning Standards. Within VELS now we find a new articulation of standards and set of values which all schools in Victoria ought to be representing, reproducing and starting to achieve in their curricula and educational practices.
Let me just highlight to you what they mean in practice for teachers, what they mean in practice for school principals, what they mean in practice for students who are of different backgrounds. So, I have highlighted for you here certain things which I think are quite interesting.
There’s an assurance that content of existing policy documents would be reflected in the principles of multicultural teaching. There’s a drive towards promoting diversity. There is also a drive towards ensuring that everyone is equally entitled to access opportunities, participate, etc. Also to bring parents more into schools. For school staff it’s the same thing; there’s a lot of talk about affirming diversity in all aspects, incorporating multicultural perspectives, trying to preserve diversity in cultural heritage, etc.
Now, you might say that's actually very powerful, very elegant, a very strong framework that, if it is applied, will ensure that we achieve those objectives. I think one of the key challenges and the deficiencies and shortcomings of the State approach for cultural diversity in schools, and to managing multicultural issues in schools, is basically this: that whilst we have developed these policies, whilst we have set up working groups, whilst we have articulated these ambitious aims and principles and objectives, etc, there has never been a mechanism instituted that would either oversee the implementation of these policies or would enable schools to be able to provide or acquired resources that would enable them to pursue these really very good agendas that the State government has articulated.
That gap in between articulation of policies and implementation, and perhaps even monitoring that schools are meeting those obligations has been what I would call, the huge disappointment for everyone who has been involved in multicultural education developments at the State level. Now I think there is, and I said earlier, the fact that that 1997 paper is being reviewed with a view of this being rewritten is because there will be many submissions from all stakeholders that the policy is basically not worth the paper it’s written on, unless it’s going to be accompanied by enabling strategies and a mechanism by which you can actually check that things are being implemented in schools and you can measure the extent to which certain schools are able to meet their obligations.
That’s the policy context for you and I’m sure you are all familiar with the socio-political context in the sense that where there is an increased emphasis on Muslim and Arab migrant groups – and not just in Australia, I just came back from America and they’re having exactly the same debates in America. We had a symposium on grassroot NGOs in America and the extent to which these grassroot NGOs are conducive, contributing to democracy or maybe are anti-democratic agents, if you like. So, you see, the debates are similar in terms of the socio-political level.
The emphasis on the increased visibility of Muslims in the West has been with us for a long period of time – there’s no denying it. You go back and you do your history, you see that in the mid 19th century that the Afghan camel drivers, the Syrian hawkers, the Indian farmer/migrants who came to Australia were basically referred to and represented and socially constructed in very much similar terminology, similar language. So that’s not something new.
What is new right now is there’s an increased emphasis on the securitisation of this discourse surrounding Muslim diaspora and the West in general. Obviously, try to mention a book that we worked on, on Muslim diaspora and political values in the West. The reason why we did that – although the title was very provocative and uneasy, really, for any laidback reader – is because we are trying to dispel the myth that there is fundamentally a problem with Muslims settling in the West. Simply the reason why it’s a myth is because Islam can be a Western faith system, as much as Christianity can be or Judaism or Hinduism or Buddhism or any other faith system.
The reason why that’s possible is because, whether it’s through an ontological analysis of Islam or through a thematic content analysis of the key values of Islam or through the space that Islam allows – not so much the ritualistic things that Muslims have to do, it’s very much the civic space that is contained in the Islamic scripture, which would allow any Muslim citizen to be able to reconcile living in the West and engaging in active citizenship with his own fundamental beliefs that he should live his life as a good Muslim. So there is no real fundamental problem there.
The project that we embarked on in 2003, initially as a project then as an ARC Linkage Grant with a community organisation that some of you may be familiar with it – Victorian Arabic Social Services, they worked with us on the community development aspect of this project – was essentially to try and look at the school experience of migrant students, Muslim students, as representing a microcosm of the wider social experience that any citizen would live, would experience.
What then we discovered through extensive review of the literature is that the only way you can deal with some of the problems that students are facing is by looking at the school experience in a holistic manner. Therefore, this model that we developed really cuts down the school experience along the middle there into two key dimensions.
The first one is the school environment. As I said earlier then I reviewed the multicultural policies and documentation produced by the State and Commonwealth, we do have a problem with regard to staff training. In particular, in the area of cross cultural understanding, and in the area of understanding the concept of culture; that culture is not ethnic; that culture is also Anglo wide; that culture shapes all of us in the way we think. So, thought process is shaped by culture, decision making is shaped by culture, our ability to embrace change and interact with others is also shaped by culture. Culture is not a simple zero sum kind of concept.
The other one which is very important is also curriculum content, that unless we are able to challenge curriculum content in a way that we are able to relate to it, all of us should be able to relate to curriculum content. But, if we do not do that seriously as a National project, as a State project, then we also are failing to meet the policy proclamations, if you like, that have been articulated by the State.
So that’s one dimension, that’s the school environment. But, equally important – when you look at the school as a holistic experience, as a microcosm, as a social unit – equally important is the fact that we have a social environment within which the school, as a unit, is located. That school environment, whether we like it or not – whatever discursive images we construct, whatever political inclinations we might nurture, whatever foreign policy issues we embrace as a nation – those societal discussions, debates, discourses, they permeate – they penetrate – the school boundary. So much so that the school community becomes affected by whatever occurs outside of it, and that’s actually quite natural if you look at school as nothing more than – if you like to use Poitier in very simplistic ways – is part of habitus, it is there as a reflection of wider society and therefore the dynamics of the school reflect what goes on outside it.
So what you want to do there is work (1) on establishing a school parent-partnership programme, and (2) to try to get community organisations involved in dismantling some of those myths but also in allowing Muslim and Arab students – initially, of course, we have managed to expand this project to other immigrant background students, so initially it was a case study in Muslims, later on it became a case study that involved English speaking background and other non-English speaking background students. So it’s enabled them – and this is where the theoretical underpinning of the study comes into it.
Let me say this – it shouldn't be recorded but I should say it anyway. As academics and citizen intellectuals in Australia, you always have a resistance to everything that is American – in a way that I grew up with a bit of resistance to American culture, production, etc. But, having been to the States and to some of the top universities and worked with colleagues from MIT Harvard on specific theories they use in their area of education, I came across initially a very obscure theory called critical race theory which came out of legal studies. I said, legal studies, what is it doing in education? What’s really empowered by this theory and the way it’s been applied in education is it does this – it not only says diversity is about recognising ethnicity, diversity is about recognising cultural rights, diversity is about enabling you to say, look, I’m different. But it’s more than that. There’s a deeper hidden structure in society which needs to be challenged, and if it’s challenged in the right way you can actually reform it, so it has a reformative agenda as well.
Part of that process of challenging the existing structures is to generate a counter-discourse. So there’s a discourse of the majority, and this is where the legal basis for the theory comes into this. So you have the framework through which you ought to be able to generate a counter discourse to tell a story that complements the other story that's being told on your behalf. Those two stories together allow you to gain the full picture of who we are as a nation.
You can see here it’s applied very much in the context of African Americans, both to enable them to charge equality discursively, but also to enable them to challenge the economic structures, the inequalities of level of employment, education outcomes, etc. I think that theory, critical race theory, has been instrumental in shaping the overall approach to the study. So what you see there – community organisations, school-parent partnerships – is a way of trying to redress that imbalance of whom tells the story of who we are; who has the right to represent us all belonging to the same nation.
In general, it’s fair to say that this is not unique to this project – there’s some other research that’s been done in New South Wales, and in Europe in particular – there’s a lot of research done in Europe about similar issues. The findings are always pointing in one direction. That is, at the time where there’s heightened political crises, at the time when there’s increased examination of the nature of Islam and Muslim communities living in the West, you always find that, that kind of examination and scrutiny always has implications for the way individuals in those communities perceive of themselves and locate their own identities within the wider society.
I should say that it’s not surprising in many ways. I mean, we do live in predominantly secular societies. There is now a new tension between secularism as an enlargement, if you like, project of organising and developing societies. What’s happening right now with post-secular revival in a religious identity across many societies – not just in the Muslim world, not just in the context of Muslim diaspora communities. You see that now emerging – in the States it’s being going on for a while – but you see that reassertion of that religious aspect of identity also occurring in other places.
So there is tension now between secularism as a project for organising social relations and for instituting constitutional arrangements for countries and states and nation building and this, now renewed, emphasis on perhaps religion could play a part in shaping both identity at a social level but perhaps even identity at the political level.
I would like to leave some time to show you one of the key initiatives that this project has been able to establish. This is very interesting that the students, in general, have developed this ability to become extremely sensitive and also extremely in tune with whatever discourses are happening outside of the school, and engage with them in a way that surprised many of us when we were talking to them. So not only are they aware of what’s happening outside in terms of discussions and debates about war on terror, invasion of Iraq, the issue of Islamic fundamentalism, radicalism in certain areas, but they were actually able to relate that to their own experiences as students within their schools. Then you see statements like that talking about terrorism, and the extent to which that’s been rationalised that is treating them all as potentially capable of exhibiting certain features that would render them either sympathetic to terrorists or, perhaps, even engage in certain activities. I think that was extremely disheartening to see.
Sally mentioned the issue of female students and you see it here. There were certain expressions used by teachers in describing female students wearing the headscarf which I would not even repeat to you but they were initially put to us. Again, it’s the link between the [inaudible] of identity and how it could impact not only on educational outcomes but, furthermore, it could impact on their prospects of securing access to the labour market, so it’s an employment barrier. The media comes into it all the time. Students are able to understand, even unpack, the complex message that they consume in the media.
Again, exchanges about students and trying to come to grips with the notion that identities are actually intercultural, in essence, and the extent to which it is possible to, again, reconcile those two parts of the equation. In a way this is part of it; that you are reflecting on who you are and sometimes one part of your identity comes to the fore, sometimes another one. But here you see it in the context of an external debate about this where they belong or don’t belong, fit or don’t fit; the extent to which they can reconcile their faith-based value system and the civic, political dimension of being a citizen in the West.
This is an interesting graph, which is the last in this presentation, which I wanted to show you because it will lead into the conclusion and what I want to guide you through.
We asked teachers in terms of what they thought were the key challenges facing them as teachers operating in multicultural classrooms. What I thought was really interesting is that curriculum was no problem – fantastic curriculum we have, don’t you worry about that, we’re the experts. Of course, teachers are experts. Student indifference was 33 per cent, parent/family are 40 per cent and community 19 per cent. So all the problems they have in this school, nearly 80 per cent are linked to students, parents and community.
Now, just take a moment to think about this. These are the teachers who are teaching these students – they think that 80 per cent of the challenges they have in the classrooms in this school are actually as a direct result of the student, the parent and the community. That really takes you back to what Sally was explaining to you; that’s why we embarked on a very ambitious, proactive approach of trying to narrow the gap – bridge the gap between teachers and schools, students and parents and community on the other side.
So the fundamental philosophical underpinning of this project – not so much, of course, countering generated counter-discourses is very important but, also, we believe that social capital, in terms of bonding within communities, is very important. Of course I think community members ought to have some solidarity – that’s communitarianism at its basic level. I think that’s fine. But, more important is that we should have the ability to develop that social bonding into social capital bridging; that is, we use it as an effective tool to bridge the gaps between those communities and the wider [inaudible] community. Only then can you have a meaningful discussion. Only then can you engage in negotiation.
It’s not just about recognition – this is where critical race theory is very important. Recognition as a fundamental intellectual tool to affect the implementation of multiculturalism has failed. If you don’t accept that now, I think it’s about time you accept that it has failed. To recognise I am different is not good enough. What you ought to be doing is recognise I’m different – of course we’re all different and that’s what makes us an interesting society – but we need to step out a basis upon which we can negotiate how we can regulate our social relations, how we can negotiate access to resources, how we can have a curriculum that reflects all of us, how we can all contribute to the storytelling of the nation; how we can all be active citizens, both economically, socially and politically. That is the fundamental part of it.
The paradigm has shifted and, as a result of that, we need to ensure that our education system reflects that – that it’s more complex now to say we live in a multicultural society.
I can tell you what we did; you can say that academics go and survey people and you get some beautiful graphs – but we didn't do that. This is a Linkage Grant which means we needed to do something for the community and benefit of society.
So what we did is, alongside the research component, we worked very systematically. I had a reference group and I had an expert advisory group which was made up of Department of Education, Social Education of Victoria, Catholic Education Office – all of those people who have a stake in this, we brought them in to play a part in dealing with the curriculum.
As a result of that, now we are just about to launch all the resources. We developed the community school partnership project. We developed eight modules for all schools to be able to use. We have a model of best practice with an audit tool, so if the State Government wants to take this – and they promised they will – they could take that model and go to any school and be able to assess the extent to which that school is equipped to manage and deal with the diversity in a proactive manner, in a meaningful manner.